Charles Tomlinson’s Seeing and Believing

Abstract

Seeing, according to the title of Tomlinson’s first full-length collection, is believing, but hasn’t his point been missed? Not only is this more than a demand for evidence: the stress falls quite as much on the believing as on the seeing, for the adage has been sounded and then reversed. It declares, surely, in the light of the poems that follow, that what is achieved in seeing well is a kind of belief. Surprisingly, therefore, the poetry of this non-Christian will be partly concerned with the question of belief, in its relation to sight; and the concern appears to be increasing.